


Porphyria's Lover

by smaychel



Category: One Piece
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-05
Updated: 2012-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-06 22:50:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaychel/pseuds/smaychel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you belong to Whitebeard then, Ace?"</p><p>WARNING: This story might be considered as Ace/Luffy if you look at it a certain way. Although non-sexual, there is touching between Ace and Luffy that is somewhat more intimate than is common for most brothers.</p><p>Also Sanji's language is, as usual, foul, and there are hints at violence and knifeplay (blame Zoro), although nothing too overt or explicit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Porphyria's Lover

 

 

The thing you have to remember about Luffy is, he's the man who'll be the pirate king. He might be a young man – fuck, he might look and act like a fucking kid ninety per cent of the time – but it's obvious to you, and even to Zoro, who's normally so oblivious that he might as well be a fucking monk, that Luffy's becoming one hell of a man before your very eyes. There's something about him, a little taller, a little leaner, a body just cruising out of adolescence but with more power inside it than the world knows how to handle. And his eyes... fuck. He looks at the crew, at all of you, with such an air of uncompromising _possession_ now. Protective, yes, but hard as fucking steel. You know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he _owns_ you. It's not just Zoro any more with his loyalty and his honour and his fucking blind hero worship – you don't think there's anyone on the crew who wouldn't die for Luffy at this point.

 

So what I'm saying is, if you wake up at three in the morning for no particular reason except maybe perhaps a quick grope in a hammock with whatever shit-head swordsman you just happen to be not-quite-secretly fucking, and find the captain missing, you tend not to be all that concerned.

 

To say that he can take care of himself is something of a massive fucking understatement. He's the man who'll be the pirate king. He can disappear whenever the fuck he likes.

 

However, when you see Chopper, who was supposed to be on watch duty until morning, snoring happily in the hammock next to the one in which you'd hoped to be engaging in a little one-on-one sword play by now, you do start to get just a touch concerned.

 

“Oy, Chopper.” Chopper mumbles something about takoyaki in his sleep, and rolls over. “Wake the fuck up, Chopper,” you hiss, kicking him as gently as you can without sending him, hammock and all, flying into the far wall.

 

“S-Sanji?”

 

“What the hell are you doing? You're supposed to be on watch tonight.”

 

For a moment Chopper bolts upright, face frozen in abject mortification, but then he suddenly seems to relax again. “I remember now – Luffy came out and said he would swap with me. He said that I should go get some sleep.”

 

“Luffy voluntarily got out of bed early to work, when no food was involved?”

 

Chopper shrugs, his eyes droop and you know he's half way back to the land of fucking nod already.

 

“Go back to sleep, Chopper,” a deep, steady voice intones quietly from the surrounding darkness, and you look up to see Zoro standing on the opposite side of the hammock. You hadn't realised he was already awake, and for a moment you feel so suddenly face-to-face that you forget the crewmate half-asleep between you. He's already fully dressed – hell, he was probably sleeping fully dressed, and you feel significantly _underdressed_ in comparison, in whatever remnants of your suit were within arms reach when you elegantly fell out of bed. Bare feet, expensive black trousers, crisp white shirt unbuttoned and rumpled all to fucking hell. Zoro's talking to Chopper, with that voice of his that is just pure fucking sex, but he's looking at you like if he looks away you might disappear too. “Blondie and I will go make sure the captain's okay.”

 

You smirk, because yeah, you'll go make sure Luffy's okay, where making sure Luffy's okay is code for wanking each other off on deck, quick and dirty under the stars. Luffy won't need your help. He's the man who'll be the pirate king. Might as well worry about the fucking ocean.

 

 

 

The moment you step out on deck Zoro's crowding you into the shadows, up against the wooden wall, his hands hot and greedy on your torso. He's fucking keen tonight, face against your neck, mouth clumsy. If anyone would feel the need to check up on your idiot captain for taking inscrutable midnight rambles above deck, it's Zoro, but clearly he has other things on his mind right now.

 

“So this is what those fucking weird looks were about, earlier today.” It was just a bunch of shitty wannabe bounty hunters, too stupid or too desperate to have any sense of fucking self preservation, deciding to have a go at the Straw Hat bounty. It was pathetic, really, not a decent fight amongst the lot of them. But one of them had been a swordsman, not as embarrassingly shit as the rest of them, and, unusually, Zoro had stepped aside and let you be the one to kick the guy's ass half way across the Grand Line. He watched every moment of the ensuing fight with an expression somewhere between hungry and murderous.

 

Your chest is still bruised all to fuck, and there's a scratch along one pale cheek bone where the blood is only now drying. Zoro licks it, one long, deliberate swipe with the wet tip of his tongue, then pulls back to look at you with hooded eyes.

 

“You fought well.”

 

You laugh. “Is that your idea of dirty talk, Zoro?”

 

“I- enjoy watching you fight.” Zoro steps up flush against you and oh yeah, you can feel how much the perverted fucker enjoys it.

 

“Pervert,” you murmur into his hair as he bends to drag his lips across your chest. “Maybe one day I'll fight _you_.”

 

Zoro groans, a sound that seems to come from deep in his throat, and his hands tighten proprietarily on your hips until you're sure he's leaving fucking thumb prints.

 

“Ace is here, you know.”

 

“I know. I can feel it.” Like all the moisture's gone from the air, which is damn impressive considering you're floating on an ocean that spans the fucking globe. You've both long learned to trust your instincts. Something's crackling in the atmosphere like the sparks that precede a forest fire, and saner men would be looking for escape routes about now, but then saner men would be on another fucking crew all together, wouldn't they?

 

Zoro opens your trousers with practiced ease and slips his hand inside. His body pins you to the wall.

 

“Do you think he's watching somewhere?”

 

Zoro grins his trademark psychopath grin at you, one corner of his mouth crooked up in a dangerous approximation of a leer. “I don't care,” he says, and his hand closes heavy round your cock.

 

*

 

“Your boys are misbehaving, Luffy.” Ace stands at the edge of the lookout, half turned away, perched improbably on the edge of the railing as if gravity itself wants nothing to do with him. He's staring down into the darkness below, and his face is impassive but there's a laugh in his voice. “Do you know what I mean by that?”

 

“I don't care.”

 

“It could have implications for your crew.”

 

“It's Zoro. I trust him.”

 

“Only Zoro?”

 

“I trust them both.”

 

Luffy's sprawled straight out on the rough wooden floor, back against the rails, staring up at the deep, dark sky.

 

“You know what? I think you're right to trust him.”

 

Luffy knows he's right. Trusting Zoro comes to him naturally as breathing, so it must be right. “You like him,” he tells Ace instead.

 

“We understand each other.”

 

Luffy hums, and tips his hat off so he can see more of the stars. He traces a Jolly Roger with his fingertips in the sky.

 

“Zoro's good for you. You'll need him.”

 

“Oh? What for?”

 

Ace grins. “To make you do the things that have to be done, _Captain_.” He seems so tall from this angle. Luffy wonders if he'll grow that tall, or even surpass his big brother. If Luffy stares at him long enough, he almost seems to have an aura – little flames licking the edges of his silhouette when he smiles down at Luffy, somewhere between teasing and affectionate. “To make you fight me, when the time comes.”

 

Luffy just laughs. “I won't mind fighting you, Ace. It'll be fun.”

 

“Oh little brother.” Ace moves, and in an instant he's behind Luffy, easing him forward and sitting down in the space he's vacated. Luffy sprawls back against him without taking his eyes off the stars. “This is why I'm glad you have the psycho swordsman.”

 

Luffy rests his arms on Ace's spread knees. He could swear the skin feels hot to the touch, too hot to be human. He feels sleepy, tonight. And hungry, always hungry. “Why?”

 

“Because I worry about you. Because he takes care of you.”

 

“I don't need anyone to take care of me.”

 

Ace laughs and threads his fingers through Luffy's deep, dark hair. “That's not what I hear, little brother.”

 

The slow, easy petting of Ace's hands in his hair is soporific. “Who takes care of you, Ace?”

 

The hands pause, momentarily, in their playing. “You should know that, in some circles, even that question might be considered an insult to my captain.”

 

There's silence between them for a while, and that's fine. Luffy lets his eyes close, lets his head fall back against the rock-hard, fire-hot body behind him. And it's peaceful, it's Ace. So Luffy's not quite sure why, when one of Ace's arms wraps round him, he suddenly misses Shanks so sharply it's like lemon on his tongue.

 

“I miss Shanks,” he says, simply, because he's never been any good at dissembling, doesn't know how to be anything but what he is.

 

“I know.” Ace's free hand comes up to encircle Luffy's arm just below the metal bracelet he's taken to wearing, and very briefly there's a flash of heat and light, blood red as Shanks' hair, that Luffy can see even with his eyes closed – where Ace lets his fire touch Luffy's skin. It hurts. It means something that can't be expressed with words, at least not between the two of them. It means Ace understands.

 

“Damn it.”

 

“You could look him up. He's not a hard man to find, if he wants to be found.”

 

Luffy shakes his head. “It's not the right time yet.”

 

The arm around Luffy's chest tightens. “Ah.”

 

Ace smells like dead fireworks and Luffy's childhood all wrapped up into one, and when he speaks again it's with that tender tone he gets when trying to explain something he thinks Luffy won't like. “It's lonely being a captain, you know.”

 

“I don't know,” Luffy mumbles. “I never thought about it.”

 

“On a pirate crew you belong to something, to _someone_. You belong to the captain. But who does the captain belong to?”

 

“Do you belong to Whitebeard then, Ace?”

 

Ace smirks, and looks away into the distance. “Whitebeard's going to be the pirate king.”

 

Luffy grins sleepily, and doesn't open his eyes. “You're wrong.”

 

“Then prove it to me one day.”

 

It's a challenge he intends to accept, but for now Luffy is just so very tired. He hides his face in Ace's throat, winds a hand up to snake round his neck and hold him close. “Go to sleep, Luffy,” Ace says, brushing the hair back off Luffy's face. “I'll stay with you until the sun rises.”

 

*

 

Black Leg Sanji is knife-pale and trembling in your arms in the pre-dawn gloaming.

 

“Fuck,” he says. Just that one word, repeated - “Fuck.”

 

He's beautiful like this, foul mouthed and dishevelled, undone. The bruises on his chest are so very stark, and god _damn_ you love to see him fight, to see the evidence of it on his skin. That cut, though, the one on his face – you can barely tear your eyes from it. You want to taste it. You want to kill the guy who did it. _You want to be the one who put it there_.

 

“That,” Sanji pants in your ear, “was some fucking good fucking.”

 

You smirk, then touch the cut on his cheek with the tips of your fingers and let them rest there. You think how perfect it would be to be able to feel this all the time – Sanji's beautiful, broken skin and slowly coagulating blood. Next time you'll be the one who cuts him, you tell yourself. Maybe you'll trace over this thin scar, open it up again and make it yours.

 

You don't need to track the guy who did it down, at least. One thing you can count on – if Sanji kicks you down, you're not getting back up again any time soon. You've got personal experience of the strength of those legs, had them propping you up against a wall while he fucks you so hard and so sweet that you're breathless. You've fought with him – hell, you fight with him all the time, but scattered among the everyday skirmishes are those rare times when the two of you have fought  _together_ , when you're working in such sweet, concerted synchrony that it puts sex to shame and even the  _thought_ , the memory of the way he moves beside you when he's nothing but adrenaline and muscle, cigarette still lit and hands in his pockets throughout like the smug, arrogant bastard he is, fills you up with something like pride, something like lust.

 

“Idiot,” you breathe into his open mouth.

 

“Psychopath,” he returns. The two of you are still mostly dressed, for all the lazy slowness of the last couple of hours of physical intimacy, still up against the wall of the ship with no space between you for a drop of water.

 

“Roronoa Zoro.”

 

Sanji jerks his head away, and you turn lazily to look towards the familiar figure stood nearby, framed in the first hot new rays of sunlight broaching the horizon.

 

“How long have you been standing there like some fucking voyeur?” Sanji demands, and your hands tighten where they're fisted in his shirt but you can't entirely stop the smile that creeps on to your face at how unconditionally god damned ballsy he is. And anyway, Ace is grinning like he's fucking _delighted_.

 

“Ace,” you say, and nod your head in greeting.

 

He tips his hat in response. “It's good to see you. I'm sorry I can't stay long.” His gaze drifts out to sea. “Things are happening out there, everything's moving towards some conclusion that I'm still not sure of.” He seems far away already, eyes on the line to the west where the ocean meets the sky. But then he shakes his head and smiles again. “Just wanted to see for myself how he's doing.”

 

“And what do you find?”

 

“I find... he's in good company.”

 

There's no real answer to that, is there? You dip your head once, an acknowledgement at least.

 

“Do me a favour, Zoro?” You meet his eyes. “Look after him.”

 

Sanji exhales, a quick burst of not-quite-laughter. “You've asked that before,” he remarks.

 

“I know. I'm asking it again.”

 

“Luffy can take care of himself.”

 

“That's what he says.”

 

Sanji stands a little taller. “He's the man who'll be the pirate king, you know.”

 

Ace smiles, wistful and proud. “So I hear.”

 

Still he lingers, as if he knows he should leave but can't bring himself to. And the man's a  _monster_ , from a family of monsters, with enough power that he's one of the few men in the entire forsaken world that Zoro would think twice about taking on, but right now he looks... diminished. Uncertain.

 

“Luffy will find One Piece and become the pirate king,” you find yourself repeating solemnly. You say it the way everyone on the crew says it – with utter conviction, like an oath. “And I would die fighting for him.”

 

Ace stares at you for a moment before grinning ear to ear. “Such loyalty,” he says. “Do you know – I believe you.”

 

A door bursts open behind you, and when Nami sprints out you and Sanji pull away from each other so quick that you're sure Ace will laugh at it. But when you turn back, he's already gone.

 

“Quickly!” she says, “get to the helm, Sanji. Zoro – the sails!”

 

You cast about for a reason for her panic. Nothing but calm sea in all directions, although the dawning sun is now splashed flame red across the horizon.

 

“N-Nami-swan, what's wrong?”

 

“Idiots! Just do it!”

 

You head for the rigging and start to climb. Way up above you Luffy stares out silently at the blood coloured skyline.

 

“And wake the others up, for god's sake,” Nami is shouting beneath you.

 

“There's a storm coming.”


End file.
